AT THIS MOMENT: An overview of the T&T Creative Sector and Creative Moment in the World

The Gate Opener…
The second confirms the first- Soca waiting in the wings for the mainstage…
Bunji, Machel, Nicki Minaj, the Soca Princesses, Dwayne Bravo, Ato Boldon, Olatunji, young local dance, theatre, and film companies…

THE CUSP OF A GOLDEN AGE

We are at one of those historic junctures again. A young generation’s energy is quickening- here and in the diaspora- and it demands to be facilitated and consolidated… If this facilitation happens the result can be a Renaissance- a Golden Age where geniuses flourish and exceptional works of Art appear from all directions, changing our economy, our social mores, our very vibration. The result will be the liberation of superlative works from every part of the country, art that will deeply affect citizens, coming at us on a weekly basis- local songs that conjugate our moods intimately, local visual art exhibitions that compel people in their thousands to go visit and contemplate, local television shows and films that shut down the country as people flock home  and to cinemas to witness them, a Carnival and Festivals that have communities electric with anticipation for the visual and aural spectacle that one is going to experience… Everywhere there will be works so exceptional that many will go down in the country’s and the globe’s canon as classics. Works that inspire audiences, communities, the nation, and the world…

The city as Art- Dubai transformed
The evolving Dubai skyline-
Creative Economy engines are transforming nations all over the globe

Museum of Middle East Modern Art in Dubai

That’s what living in a Golden Age feels like, and many parts of the world are experiencing this high at the moment, as part of the Renaissance in the Creative Industry which is worth an annual bounty of $2.2 trillion. The blockbuster movies; the Golden Age of television; the excitement of the gaming industry; the renaissance in publishing; the excitement around experimental architecture; and the reinvention of countries and cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi that we are witnessing are part of an exciting Age in human development which has catapulted the Arts, Culture, and the Creative into becoming the 2nd largest industry in the world.

LEST WE FORGET…

2013 AND THE FINAL DAYS OF THE GOLDEN AGE GENERATION

A sample of some of those we lost this year: (left to right in each row)

1. Justice Ulric Cross– WWII veteran airman, the most decorated West Indian of World War II, super diplomat/judge, all-round James Bond type hero
2. Luis Kimme– genuis sculptor and visual artist, Muse of Tobago
3. Penguin– calypsonian writer of classics like ‘Look de Devil Dey’, ‘A Deputy is Essential’, and ‘Sorf Man’,
4. Stanley Marshall– brilliant Trinidad Theatre Workshop actor who owned such roles as Moustique in Derek Walcott’s ‘Dream on Monkey Mountain’
5. Syl Dopson– footballer with champion side Shamrock and musical legend, leader of the seminal Kaiso All Stars
6. Louis Homer– journalist- champion of folklore and Heritage
7. Narsalo Ramaya– one of the country’s most respected violinists and Indian Classical musicians, one of the founders of the National Council of Indian Culture (NCIC)
8. Jeffrey Chock– one of the Caribbean’s greatest photographers, dedicated visual poet of East Port of Spain and the Carnival
9. Marjorie Boothman– cultural matriarch and memory of Afro-Saxon Golden Age culture and matriarch of the Holder and Boothman clan
10. Michael Als– unionist/ community leader, founder of the Banking, Insurance and General Workers Union (BIGWU), founder of the revolutionary Toco Foundation which pioneered community reclamation from the ground-up- particularly rural communities
11. Dr Tony Martin– genius Caribbean historian, the world’s defining scholar on Marcus Garvey and author of possibly the most important book on Caribbean History called ‘Caribbean History- From Pre-Colonial Origins to the present’
12. George Ng Wai– driving force of the band Imij and Company/Second Imij, lead vocalist and percussionist for the original line-up of the late Andre Tanker and The Flamingoes in the 1960s, panman with the Dixieland, Silver Stars and Phase II
13. Teddy Belgrave– unionist/historian/activist, icon within both the steelband and labour movement, founding member of Birdsong Steel Orchestra, writer of the history of the Communications Workers Union,
14. Isidore Smart– chief state solicitor, patriarch of the Smart family
15. Mc Donald Bailey– called the Black Flash, one of the greatt sprinters of the early 20th century, held a Guinness World Record for the longest winning streak in a race- the sprint double which he won seven times at the AAA Championships. He jointly held the 100 m world record at 10.2 seconds between 1951 and 1956 with the great Jessee Owens
16. Isaac Thurliff (IT) McLeod– Tobagonian businessman and quantity surveyor
17. Edward Hernandez– curator par excellence of Tobago history and the Tobago Museum
18. Peter Harris– Trinbago’s principal archaeologist who discovered the Banwari Man fossil which established T&T’s pedigree of having a 7000 year old human civilisation